The San Mateo’s sister ship, Don Francisco de Toledo’s San Felipe, had been secured alongside the Doncella, the 500-ton Guipúzcoan urca, to evacuate her crew after firing cannon shots to indicate her distress. Three hundred were taken off before it was feared that the Doncella was also sinking, so the warship was forced to cast off, but not before some rejoined the wallowing, damaged warship. ‘Captain Juan Poza . . . said that the hulk was going down. [Toledo] replied that if that were the case, they had better be drowned in the galleon than in the hulk and they both went back to her.’27 San Felipe was later also beached between Ostend and Sluis, minus her mainmast and with her sails torn to shreds. After another fight with the Dutch, Toledo and ‘most of the other gentlemen’ escaped by boat to Nieuport, but only 127 ‘poor mangled souls’ from her complement of 640 were saved from the surf. After botched Dutch attempts to refloat her, the San Felipe sank before she could be brought into Flushing the next morning. A third ship, an unnamed patache, probably the San Antonio de Padua from Diego Flores’ Castile squadron, also sank off the castle and town of Rammekins in Zeeland.
The Spanish ships had been badly battered, losing four vessels in addition to the San Lorenzo off Calais harbour. Their casualty lists totalled more than a thousand killed and around eight hundred wounded. Understandably, amid the screams of the injured and the moans of the dying below decks, morale on the ships slumped that night, even though the damaged fleet remained a formidable fighting force and still represented a potent, fearsome threat to England.
Early the following day, Tuesday 9 August, the extent of similar disillusionment amongst the Armada’s high command became apparent. There was traitorous talk of surrender amongst Medina Sidonia’s immediate subordinates, but the friar Padre La Torre, in San Martin, reported there was ‘no pinnace available [to communicate with Howard] which was a particular favour from God and in any case, the duke did not want to follow this course, preferring to die like a knight’.28 Caught between the English fleet and the coast, the Armada was in peril of wrecking itself on the Flanders Banks, a fear magnified by the leadsmen’s continual calls of ever shallower water lying beneath the keels as they squatted in each ship’s bows, taking soundings. Luis de Miranda, a member of the captain-general’s staff, admitted: ‘We saw ourselves lost or taken by the enemy or the whole armada drowned upon the banks. It was the most fearful day in the world, for the whole company had lost all hope of success and looked only for death.’29
San Martin remained in the rear of the Spanish fleet, with the galleons San Marcos and Diego Flores’ San Juan, together with the galleasses. Their enemy, numbering 109 ships, followed astern at only half a league’s (2.78 km) distance. At one stage it seemed the English intended to attack, but the galleasses swept around to protect their flagship and the enemy ships retired, perhaps believing that the Spanish ships were doomed anyway, as the line of white crested surf breaking on the deadly sandbanks was now visible to all in the Armada.
With the depth at seven fathoms (12.8 m.), Medina Sidonia hailed one of his veteran commanders, Miguel de Oquendo, whose Santa Ana was coming up fast alongside the flagship: ‘Señor Oquendo, what shall we do, for we are lost?’ he called across the sweeping rush of the sea between the ships. He shouted back: ‘Let Diego Flores answer that’ – an indication of just how unpopular the naval adviser had become in the Armada. ‘As for me,’ Oquendo continued, ‘I am going to fight and die like a man. Send me a supply of shot.’30
Medina Sidonia fired two cannon to signal the Armada to regroup and sent pataches to order his vessels to keep their heads close to the wind. His pilots warned him grimly that ‘it was impossible to save a single ship . . . as they must inevitably be driven by the north-west wind on to the banks of Zeeland’. He believed that ‘God alone could rescue them’.31
God indeed did save them.
The wind suddenly veered to the south-west, enabling the Armada to immediately steer a northerly course away from the coast and safely into the North Sea.
Howard summoned his commanders to Ark Royal. His perennial shortage of gunpowder and shot made it impossible to attack as they had at Gravelines. As one of his captains, Henry White, complained later: ‘Our parsimony at home has bereaved us of the [most famous] victory that ever our navy might have had at sea.’32 They decided unanimously to pursue the Armada ‘until we have cleared our own coast and brought the Firth [of Forth in Scotland] west of us and then to return back again, as well as to revictual our ships (which stand in extreme scarcity) [but] also to guard and defend our coast at home . . .’33 The danger of Parma’s army remained, so Howard left a reinforced squadron under Seymour to guard the Dover Straits, some of which could restock with provisions and munitions at Harwich. Seymour, still hungry for action, obeyed the order very much against his will. Unbeknown to him and Howard, Parma had heard the cannonades of the previous day’s battle and had completed the embarkation of his 16,000 men.
That evening Medina Sidonia called his own council of war. Don Diego Flores argued strongly for a return to Calais, but they all resolved to return to the English Channel only ‘if the weather would allow of it but if not, then they should obey the wind and sail to Spain by the North Sea, bearing in mind that the Armada was lacking all necessary things and that the ships, which had resisted hitherto, were badly crippled’.34 Chief Purser Calderón had misgivings about the wisdom of sailing around the north of Scotland, west of Ireland and then out into the Atlantic. He warned them they would have to sail seven hundred and fifty leagues (4,167 km) ‘through stormy seas, almost unknown to us, before we could reach Corunna’. Ever efficient, Calderón then investigated the Armada’s dwindling stock of provisions and water supplies. It would not be a bountiful voyage.
Superficially, there was some sense in the selection of this course. Even though the voyage would take between a month to five weeks to complete, the commanders could reasonably expect the season’s weather to be settled. They could be almost home in Spain by the time that the regular late September gales would blow up around the autumn equinox.
Thirty leagues (166.68 km) east of Newcastle, Medina Sidonia ordered that the horses and the forty artillery mules be thrown overboard as there was no more water for them.
In London, the tension and anxieties of the past month were beginning to recede. Earlier the Privy Council had sent a letter to John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, seeking public prayers to be said against the success of the Armada.35 As the London citizens were so alarmed, Spanish prisoners, including Don Pedro de Valdés of the Rosario, detained after the first engagement, were paraded in carts through the streets ‘so that people might see that some prisoners had been captured’.36 Under questioning, Valdés said that none of the English exiles serving with the Armada were ‘privy to the secrets of the enterprise’ and denied any knowledge of promises made by recusants to take up arms in support of invasion. Burghley, with a shrewd eye for telling propaganda, had dictated the questions to be put to prisoners during interrogation. How would ‘the spoils of London and other towns be [divided]? What profit should be reserved for the king? Was it intended to impose ransoms [for English prisoners of noble birth]?’ Valdés, however, maintained there was no permission granted for pillaging or looting once Spanish forces had landed.37
Although the bonfires burned in celebration in London after news of Gravelines arrived, the Armada was still perceived as an imminent threat by Elizabeth’s government. On 9 August George Talbot, Sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, the lord lieutenant of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire, emphasised the vital need for constant vigilance, ordering: ‘All those who have the custody of recusants must detain them close prisoners.’38 He also offered his services to the queen to resist the invasion: ‘though I be old, yet her quarrel shall make me young again; though lame in body, yet lusty in heart to lend her greatest enemy one blow and to live and die in her service’.39 As late as 18 August, Sir Thomas Morgan warned the Earl of Leicester that Parma ‘has in readiness 30,000 or
40,000 men and intends with the next spring tide to put out his forces for England, hoping to meet the king’s fleet’40 and the following day, Sir Thomas Scott told Leicester that Drake had warned him ‘that the Spanish army did intend to land at Dungeness, near Lydd [Kent] and there to entrench themselves and to be supplied from time to time out of France with victuals and all necessaries’.41
There were mounting fears among her advisers and military and naval commanders that Elizabeth’s perpetually straitened finances and her natural parsimony would lower England’s guard before it was safe to do so. Howard warned Walsingham: ‘Let not her majesty be too hasty in dissolving her forces by sea and land and I pray you send me with speed what [news] you have of Dunkirk for I long to do some exploit on their shipping.’42 Drake was also worried that ‘some may advise the queen not to continue her forces’ and he dared not ‘advise her to hazard her kingdom for the saving of a little charge’.43
Meanwhile the Armada was slowly heading northwards, watched by a reduced number of English ships. Medina Sidonia had some unpleasant business to settle. He had fired cannon three times to summon his commanders but his signal was ignored. Eventually his boats collected the captains and Padre La Torre recounted their welcome on board San Martin. A furious captain-general asked them: ‘Did you not hear the gun?’ and they admitted they had. ‘Then why did you not rally?’ he asked and was enraged by their reply: ‘We thought your flagship was sinking and that we should all hasten away to safety.’ There was a long silence. ‘Hang the traitors,’ ordered Medina Sidonia.44
There were other crimes to punish. On Thursday 11 August, twenty navy and army captains were arraigned for cowardice at Gravelines. Francisco de Cuéllar, captain of the Castilian San Pedro, appeared before Don Francisco de Bobadilla, the Armada’s senior military commander, in San Martin45 accused of not keeping station with the fleet.
He ordered me to be taken to the [judge advocate general’s] ship [Lavia] for his sentence to be carried out. There I repaired, and though he was a severe judge, the fiscal heard my case and took testimony concerning me.
He heard that I served his majesty as a good soldier and therefore became unwilling to execute the orders he had received.
He wrote to the duke about it, saying that unless he received a direct order written by the duke and signed with his own hand, he would not comply with his orders.46
Cuéllar was reprieved. But Don Cristobal de Avila, captain of the hulk Santa Barbara, ‘a gentleman of renown’ was ‘hanged with great cruelty and dishonour’ – strung up from the masthead of a pinnace and his body paraded through the ranks of the Armada as a dreadful warning. Others were condemned to the galleys or reduced in rank. Calderón noted: ’It is said that this was because on the day of the battle, they allowed themselves to drift out of the fight.’47
On the afternoon of Friday 12 August both fleets reached the Firth of Forth with the wind blowing from the south-south-west. Howard was worried that the Spanish might attempt a landing in Scotland in support of Catholics wishing to depose James VI of Scotland. As the Armada continued north, he left two pinnaces to shadow it until they passed the Orkney and Shetland islands, and at two o’clock he gratefully steered a course for home and much-needed food and water. He told Walsingham: ‘We are persuaded that either they [will] pass about Ireland and so do what they can to recover their own coast or else they are gone for some part of Denmark.’48
Medina Sidonia recorded in his diary: ‘The enemy’s fleet was quite close to us but as they saw we were well together and that the rearguard had been reinforced, the enemy fell astern and sailed towards England until we lost sight of him. Since then we have continued sailing with the same wind . . . and it has been impossible for us to return to the English Channel.’49 The following day he ordered tighter rations with only eight ounces (226.8 grams) of bread and half a pint (0.28 litre) of wine plus a pint of water each day. Rather desperately perhaps, he offered 2,000 ducats to a French pilot ‘if he would conduct him to a Spanish port’.50
In Rome, Philip’s ambassador Olivares was still facing an uphill struggle to extract any money from Sixtus V, despite him saying daily Masses for the success of the Armada. On 7 August he stood uncomfortably before the Pope and made a long speech seeking, yet again, an advance on the promised subsidy for the invasion. He reminded the diffident and restless pontiff that it was he himself who had persuaded Philip to undertake the heavy task of the ‘Enterprise of England’:
His majesty trusts that the Pope’s postponement of the payments, which he could easily make, may, by God’s grace, not result in some reverse, which would be a great injury to the cause of our Lord and the glory of his Holiness. The Pope would never cease to grieve if he had been the cause of such a disaster and all subsequent efforts he might make to repair it would be unavailing; whilst what is asked of him now he can do with the greatest of ease.
These slightly intimidating words of persuasion failed to sway the Pope. Sixtus merely shrugged his shoulders for, as Olivares commented, ‘when it comes to getting money out of him, it is like squeezing his lifeblood. [All] our efforts availed nothing.’
Eleven days later the envoy reported again on his hopeless mission. When the question of the cash was raised
the only effect is that the moment my back is turned, he babbles the most ridiculous nonsense at table as . . . would not be said by a baby of two years old.
He possesses no sort of charity, kindliness or consideration and his behaviour attributed by everyone to the repulsion and chagrin that he feels as the hour approaches to drag this money from his heart.
Sixtus insisted on the strict letter of the agreement: no landing, no money. Then he tried some brazen bluster, alleging
that the Armada business is nothing but a trick and that your majesty has not raised the fleet for the English enterprise at all, but for brag and to frighten the Queen of England into making peace . . . He shows reports he has received to this effect . . . however unlikely a report may be, it matters not to his Holiness if it serves his purpose.51
As if to antagonise Philip even further, Sixtus, not famous for his empathy with the Spanish king, remained besotted with Elizabeth. He told an open-mouthed Giovanni Gritti, the Venetian ambassador to the Holy See, that the king ‘goes trifling with this Armada of his, but the queen acts in earnest. Were she a Catholic, she would be our best beloved, for she is of great worth.’
Just look at Drake! Who is he? What forces has he? Yet he burned twenty-five of the king’s ships . . . and as many again at Lisbon. He had robbed the flotilla and sacked San Domingo. His reputation is so great that his countrymen flock to him to share his booty.
We are sorry to say it, but we have a poor opinion of this Spanish Armada and fear some disaster.
The king should have sailed when we told him, in September of last year.
What can the king do? He has no money and has borrowed 300,000 ducats from Mantua and 200,000 from the Archbishop of Toledo.
Twenty thousand of his troops have been lost through this delay, some dead, some killed.
The queen has had time to arm.52
If the Vatican was an unreliable source of loans, there were always bankers. That August, Philip borrowed ‘one million of gold’ from Genoa at nearly 25 per cent interest, having already pawned his wife’s jewellery.
First reports from any conflict frequently contain misleading information as a consequence of slow communications, wishful thinking, or just the impenetrable fog of war. The ever-optimistic Mendoza in Paris excitedly informed Philip on 9 August of a great victory over the English fleet the week before, enclosing a letter from Isoardo Capello from Rouen claiming that the Armada had ‘sunk fifteen of the enemy’s ships, including the flagship’ and that the survivors had retreated towards Dover. The king replied: ‘As you consider the news to be true, I am hopeful that it will prove to be so, particularly as the author claims to have been an eye witness.’ He wrote to Medina Sidonia:
This news is as
serted in France to be true . . . I hope to God that it may be so and that you have known how to follow up the victory and make the most of it, pursuing the enemy actively without giving him the opportunity of reforming and pushing on until you join hands with my nephew, the duke [of Parma]. This being done, it may be hoped that with God’s help, the enemy’s fear of us and our men’s courage, other victories will have followed.
Philip ended his letter: ‘I confidently look for God’s favour in a cause so entirely His own and expect your valour and activity will have accomplished all I could desire. I anxiously await news.’53
Hieronimo Lippomano, Venetian envoy to Spain, was all too familiar with Mendoza’s unbridled optimism. ‘The report is so confused and that ambassador so accustomed to deceive himself that they are awaiting confirmation of the news. No public rejoicings have taken place, nor have the ambassadors congratulated the king.’ Philip had ‘exclaimed that he trusted God would favour his cause to the full, for he was moved by no desire to increase his possessions, but only to increase the faith and the Catholic religion’. The king added rather sorrowfully, ‘Even if I conquered England I would not in many years recover the expenses of the Armada for a single day.’54
The Spanish Armada Page 23
